New Beginnings
by Kameka
Summary: Ianto and a little bit of Jack post-Cyberwoman. Rated for a teeny tiny bit of violence.


**Title**: New Beginnings

**Author**: Kameka

**Rating**: PG

**Disclaimers**: Jack, Ianto, Lisa, the good Doctor, and any other Torchwood members and/or equipment do not belong to me. No money has been made, so don't bother suing me.

**Notes**: My second Torchwood story. I always thought that there should be a little more after Cyberwoman… so here's some. This has been spelling-and-grammar-checked and was read through by the wonderful Kattie. Any mistakes are my own.

**Summary**: Ianto and a little bit of Jack post-Cyberwoman. Rated for a teeny tiny bit of violence.

~*~Torchwood~*~

Ianto Jones blinked rapidly as light from the rising sun hit his eyes. He groaned at the drink-induced headache that made itself known by the pounding that felt like a pile-driver drilling against his skull and the ever-present morning after cotton-mouth. He rolled over, wondering why he had forgotten to close the drapes in his bedroom, a ritual since he was in University, and promptly fell onto his stomach. Grimacing at the dank smell of damp earth, the morning dew seeping through the layers of clothes, ruminations of draperies changed swiftly to wondering what on earth had possessed him to fall asleep on, he looked around to confirm his fear, a park bench. Not just any park bench, but a park bench in the middle of Cardiff, Wales, in a park that was known to be a place of Weevil sightings and captures.

"Great job, Jones," he muttered to himself as he pressed himself upwards to stand, swaying slightly, in the brightening light. "The headline, if newspapers knew about all this, would be perfect: Torchwood member mauled by Weevils while taking in a spot o' sleep instead of traveling the few kilometers to his flat. Just imagine what Jack would say to that stupidity."

Trying in vain to moisten his mouth with saliva, vowing to never again get shit-arsed drunk, he brushed dirt off of his clothes, grimacing again at the state of his suit. That'll take a pretty bit of dry cleaning to end up looking even halfway presentable. Brushing particularly hard in a few areas, he frowned down at them. As far as he knew, dirt wasn't that clingy, unless it was dried on mud. As gopher, tea-and-office boy and all-around butler to Torchwood 3, he knew very few stains that were truly, truly stubborn. Lifting his shirt up as best he could to peer at it, he realized that the stain was actually slightly reddish in color, dried rust that flaked off on his hand and lodged under a fingernail.

It was blood.

Now, for a member of Torchwood 3, finding blood on your clothes was nothing at all special. It was actually fairly normal, even for Ianto, who rarely left the Hub or the tourist office unless it was to run some fast errands. The aliens kept in the lower levels, the dirt and grime that he battled on a daily basis in a top-secret base located in what was essentially, of all places, a sewer, his own team-mates' in the field follies… All of them had pressed his dry-cleaner into service again and again, the man nary raising a brow at seeing his favorite, most persistent, and most spend-thrift customer.

It had gotten to a point where seeing blood in the process of drying on clothes, albeit not pouring fresh out the injured bodies, rarely raised much of a reaction for him. Except, of course, to find bandages to apply to the wound, put a call in to the team medic, and do his best to make sure that things don't get too out of hand.

This, on the other hand, was much, much different.

Researchers say that those suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome and those who have suppressed memories for any length of time can have flashbacks, memories brought back out of the subconscious mind when triggered by an event or a sensory reminder. It was one of the main problems with Retcon, the amnesiac drug that Torchwood employed to maintain its secrecy, as evidenced by the recruitment of the team's newest member, Gwen Cooper. Ianto had always thought that however deeply buried such thoughts and memories were affected the trauma of actively remembering them. It stood to reason, in his researcher's mind.

That chilly Cardiff morning he was proven wrong.

He stood frozen, staring down at the rust-colored stain on what had, yesterday morning, been a pristine suit jacket, just barely discernable against the blue fabric in the early morning light. Closing blue eyes, he shook his head slightly. "No," he murmured in a thicker-than-usual Welsh accent.

They weren't real, these thoughts that invaded his mind, the firing neurons over-riding the pounding headache. They couldn't be real. He would go into work same as always, make coffee for the team before heading to the tourist office to do his own work and research. They would be there, and they would be the same as always: Tosh, sweet but preoccupied with her computers; Gwen, all fresh enthusiasm and teasing; Owen, with his mocking, biting, sarcastic comments that Ianto was sure hid a soft nature deep down; and Jack. Captain Jack Harkness, their leader, their protector, the person who carried most of the burdens of the Torchwood team on his broad shoulders.

Everything was alright.

Lisa wasn't dead. After he got off work, and the others had left, he would find her down in the basement, hidden away from those who might be a threat to her, waiting patiently for him. She would look at him and smile that wonderful smile that made every breath seem lighter. She would chide him for working too hard, for being so busy taking care of her that he forgot to take care of himself, and he would give her a kiss as an apology.

These memories, these thoughts, never happened. Lisa, his sweet, innocent, victimized Lisa hadn't murdered a man in cold blood. She hadn't tried to kill the rest of the Torchwood team. They hadn't killed her.

He hadn't been ordered to kill her.

A whimper escaped his throat, the persistence of these horrid thoughts asserting that they were, in fact, memories instead of some random horrible nightmare that he could wake up from and wash away with a multitude of caffeine. The noise caused a man walking by to look at him strangely. Ianto was unaware as the man looked in disgust at the rumpled clothes and muttered about well-dressed men that should know better. Ianto also missed the man taking in the details, more than the rumpled suit, to see dirt and blood stains and bruises darkening on pale skin, and hurrying away without another glance.

He was vaguely aware of his entire body beginning to shake, though he wasn't sure if it was from the cool weather or shock. A combination of both, he finally decided, his mind grasping onto the one thought that made sense: he had to get home. Everything would look better if he could just get home, get clean, and get some real sleep in his own bed. A simple routine always managed to make even the most chaotic life look better. Taking one trembling step after another, he staggered home, bracing himself with one hand on a convenient lamppost or shop window along the way. His mind reeling with what a part of him still wished was a horrible nightmare, it never even occurred to him to find his car; that it would be faster in reaching his goal. Considering the state he was in, it might have been a good thing.

The sun was high in the sky by the time he reached his flat, eyes slit from the glare. His skin was damp and clammy, his rumpled suit looking even more disreputable in the harsh light of day. Passing another tenant with a curt nod, he made his way up the stairs to the floor his flat was on. It was the final hurdle. His stomach began to roil threateningly as he fumbled more desperately with the lock. Before he had taken two steps, he abruptly found himself kneeling on the wood floors he prized, vomiting up what little he had in his stomach. The experience continued, the smell and taste of bile only making more rise until he was dry-heaving, wasting what little energy he had left after everything he had already been through that morning.

Finally finished, after what seemed like an entirely too long a time for what little Ianto managed to eat; he crawled across the floor to rest his head on the cool glass of the coffee table. With a long-suffering sight, he finally heaved himself up and went to get towels to clean up the mess he had made. He made short work of it, dropping the towels into a garbage bin before stripping out of his suit. He dearly wanted to just fall into bed and sleep away the rest of the day only to wake up and discover the day had never existed, but he couldn't. He felt wretched, his skin fairly crawling beneath rumpled fabric, and he refused to lay down feeling like that. Instead, he climbed into the shower, letting the water get so hot that it instantly turned his skin pink; scrubbing with a washcloth to get every last creepy-crawly feeling out from under it.

Emerging from the bathroom still wet, a towel draped haphazardly around his waist, he took one look at the photograph on the night table, he and Lisa together, their arms around each other as Lisa smiled for the camera and Ianto watched her, and stumbled from the room. He couldn't sleep there, with her watching over him like some guardian angel. Not with everything still running in circles in his mind. Instead, he flopped down onto the sofa, not even bothering to dry off properly before closing his eyes and drifting into a thankfully dreamless sleep.

It was late when he awoke again; reddish sunlight glaring in through his window as the sun began to dip under the horizon. There were no lights on in the room and Ianto rubbed a tired hand over his face before pushing himself up into a sitting position. He had been wrong. Getting home, clean, and some quality sleep hadn't helped in the slightest. The dreamless state of his sleep hadn't remained; instead he had been tortured by a filmstrip of images. There was Lisa, lying broken on a nightmarish contraption inside a decimated office in Torchwood Tower; building yet another one on her instructions deep within the bowels of Torchwood 3's Hub, having finally talked himself into a job.

The filtered lights gleaming on the metal that had begun to overtake Lisa's body as she stared down people he had grown to care for over the past months. Doctor Tanizaki, his body mutilated as Lisa plaintively repeated that she only wanted to upgrade him, to help him as he was helping her.

Had that been when he truly knew, deep down inside, that his Lisa was lost?

It wasn't when he had found her, kept her alive, and built a machine that perverted the very idea of humanity. It was when she had taken a life and not felt a real thing for it. That wasn't Lisa, wasn't the woman he loved. She had her faults, but she had never been needlessly cruel. It was part of what had attracted him to her.

Yet, he had continued on.

He'd hidden the body, ignored the signs. All these months of hope couldn't be for nothing. The betrayals he had perpetrated in, the hiding, the lack of trust, going anywhere near Torchwood again after seeing his workplace and friends decimated. It was just an aberration, just a small hitch in the grand scheme of things.

And then… Oh, God.

Lisa, standing there in the Hub, not hooked up to sustain her life. She had been talking, her voice cold and disdainful with no inflection at all, saying the most awful things. She was nothing but a walking, talking computer, bent on destruction.

But still, he hadn't wanted to believe it; hadn't wanted to let go of her.

Not when she tried to kill Owen, Gwen, or Tosh. Not when she killed Jack.

Not even when she tried to kill him.

It didn't matter. It didn't matter what he saw, what the others saw. He knew the truth: that the Lisa Hallet he had fallen in love with was still in there, somewhere, deep within a mind traumatized by the Battle of Canary Wharf. Hadn't she been there just earlier that evening, smiling, talking with him? Loving him.

But then…

He stood abruptly, the towel falling forgotten to the floor, as he took a step towards the kitchen to make him a cup of coffee, or perhaps something just a bit stronger. He was stopped by a mirthless chuckle, making him spin, one hand reaching out to steady a body that hadn't consumed anything but alcohol in the last 16 hours. Sitting in an armchair in the corner of the room, blue eyes twinkling slightly in a face heavily shadowed, was his boss.

"I never thought these would be the circumstances I saw you out of those suits, Ianto Jones, and believe me, I've thought of it."

"Jack." The name was whispered as Ianto shook his head slightly. Looking to the front door, he saw that the door was each of the three locks was engaged. Had he locked them before? If he had, how had Jack Harkness gotten inside? Or was it worse if he had left them undone in his stupor, Jack had let himself in and then locked the door to keep them both inside? "Sir?"

"I didn't expect you'd be so careless to leave your front door unlocked." The immortal stood and wandered through the room with his typical easy grace. Strong, graceful hands picked up a photograph here, a book there, running his fingers over some of the knick-knacks that Ianto kept. The very few in number knick-knacks, making each one just that much more important to him. He bit back a protest as Jack seemed to know just what book to flip open to read a loving note inscribed on a front cover.

"Yes, sir," he finally said for lack of anything else. His fingers itched to knock away Jack's hands, his mind screaming that these things were private, that his flat was his sanctuary. It wasn't a place for Jack or anyone else from Torchwood to be. It was his and his alone. Dark eyes watched as Jack continued to peruse the flat, randomly touching objects, running his fingers along the back of the leather sofa. He even went so far as to go into the kitchen, opening cupboard doors when the whim took him, clucking under his breath at what was and wasn't there.

The movement was comforting, coming from a man who rarely stood still. The silence, though, made Ianto want to scream. The only sounds in the flat were the ones that Jack made by moving objects; Ianto standing frozen where he had been left, unable or unwilling to talk, to break the silence.

After an eternity, the sun falling almost entirely below the horizon in the time, Jack stopped his dispassionate perusal of the very things that made Ianto _Ianto_ and stepped towards the Welshman. Ianto froze in the act of taking a breath, his muscles tensing as his boss reached up one of those long-fingered hands reached up and gently traced the side of his face. He sucked the breath in noisily and swallowed convulsively, unsure of just what was going through the other man's mind. "Sir, I –"

"Don't." The voice was implacable, the tone one of a man who time had tested and he had came out a leader. It was gentle, a quiet caress against nerves frayed by stress.

"But, sir –"

A single raised eyebrow made Ianto fall silent. He swallowed again, his muscles beginning to tremble from the strain of staying absolutely completely still and he relaxed them as much as possible.

"You know," Jack began conversationally, his hand still resting against Ianto's cheek as he stepped closer into the Welshman's personal space, "I have to admit that I never pegged you for a conman. And believe me, I know conmen."

"I'm _not_ a conman!" was burst out from Ianto, hurt blossoming through his chest and replacing the dull ache that had begun to take up residence there. It was immediately followed by a rush of unease, having spoken when Jack Harkness obviously wanted him to remain quiet.

"Really? What would you call it?" The raised hand patted Ianto's cheek, not quite rough but definitely not as gentle as it could have been. "You stalked me, you persisted until I gave you a job, against my better judgment, I might add. I distinctly remember telling you that I'd severed all ties with Torchwood Institute, that you weren't welcome."

"You hired me," was said quietly, not wanting to anger him.

"You're right; I did. That was my mistake. I should have gone with my instincts. You know," Jack laughed a sound that didn't reach blue eyes, "it's funny that I fell for such a con. I guess I deserved it, though. Deserved dying."

The horror of last night washed over Ianto anew and he started to tremble. "Don't say that!"

"But it's true. I didn't recognize your con. I hired you against my better judgment. I gave you free reign of the Hub. I didn't protect my people. I didn't keep my promises." The last was said quietly, more to himself then anyone. It was only because they were standing so close that Ianto heard it at all.

"What promises?"

Jack shook his head, his hand slipping down to rest against Ianto's throat. "No promises that concern you, Ianto Jones."

He swallowed convulsively, hyper-aware of the gentle fingers just barely resting against his skin. He remembered Jack, ordering him to clean up the mess he had created, to kill Lisa or be killed by Jack. Had that been a promise that he intended to keep? Is that why the Captain had come here, let himself into Ianto's home? Captain Jack Harkness is a man who kept his word as much as he could within the constraints he worked in. He's a man who cleaned up after screw-ups that the people he was responsible for made. He's a man who saw that justice was done, whenever possible. He knew all of this. He had spent months watching the man before he had joined Torchwood 3, and the months since then doing the same. He knew just what kind of man his boss – former boss? – was.

"Is that why you're here?" The question, Ianto was pleased to note, wasn't shaky at all, though it was quiet.

Jack blinked, his hand tightening momentarily. "What?"

"Are you here to keep your promises, Captain Harkness?"

"My promises."

"Yes, sir; at the Hub, when we were all fighting," Ianto stopped and closed his eyes tightly before opening them again and looking at Jack. "At the Hub. You told me to kill Lisa" Ianto ignored Jack's angry declaration that that _thing_ hadn't been Ianto's Lisa Hallet "or that you would kill me." Ianto wet dry lips and swallowed. "Is that why you're here, sir?"

"And if it is? Just what would you do if that _is_ the reason I came here, Ianto Jones?"

Ianto stayed silent, licking his lips again as he thought about everything that had led him up to this point: to standing naked in the middle of his living room, his boss' hand wrapped around his bare throat.

"I asked you a question, Ianto."

"Yes, sir." Ianto stayed silent for just a moment more before coming to a decision. "I would ask that you allow me to get dressed, sir."

"You wouldn't beg for your life? You wouldn't do your best to wheedle out of anything?"

"No, sir."

Jack laughed then, shaking his head. "Living with dignity and dying with dignity. That's what I like about you, Ianto."

"Yes, sir."

They were both silent, then, Jack's hand still resting against Ianto's skin, the room now enveloped almost completely in shadows. The streetlight outside and the digital clock produced the only light, and the men could only see each other because of their close proximity. Ianto shivered, his body reacting to the cool air, though he made no movement to leave, no mention of wanting clothes or a blanket.

Abruptly, Jack's hand began to close, tightening with Ianto's throat firmly within its grip. The Welshman didn't struggle, knowing that such a thing would only make it worse. This was it, then; the end. What more had he expected, when he had set out to ingratiate himself into Torchwood 3? When he had set out to con Jack Harkness? In this moment, as black dots began to dance in his line of vision, he could admit to himself that that is what he had done. That what was happening was just karma; it was what he deserved for putting the lives of people who could have been friends in another time, another life, in danger. The least he could do his face what he had coming to him with dignity. As he lost consciousness, he idly thought that he would have felt better if Jack had allowed him to get dressed first.

A light was burning cheerfully in the corner when Ianto came back to consciousness, laid out on the sofa he had slept on earlier. One hand was raised quickly to his throat. Had he imagined all of that? Wincing at the touch of his fingers, he swallowed convulsively and shook his head. No, he hadn't. Sitting up, he dropped his head into his hands and took a deep breath. Why was he still here?

"That was your one warning, Ianto Jones."

His head coming up so quickly that Ianto feared whiplash, he looked over to see Jack standing just inside the closed door. "Sir?"

"Even the worst conman deserves a second chance. Don't mess yours up." Jack turned and unlocked the door, stepping out into the hallway. He stopped for a brief moment before turning and flashing his pearly whites in his trademark grin. "You know, I like you in your suits, Ianto. I like you even better out of them." With that pronouncement, he was gone, the door swinging quietly closed behind him.

Shaking his head slightly, Ianto stood up to go get dressed, wondering what kind of rabbit hole he had fallen into this time.

The End

As always, reviews are welcome.


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